Two-time champion Shaun White competes in Olympic halfpipe

He wanted to go last.Shaun White liked knowing where his 11 competitors were on an overcast Tuesday before driving into the icy halfpipe and taking a personal helicopter ride into Olympic immortality.As White prepared for the final run that would determine whether he’d win a third gold medal, he told himself, “You know you’ve got this as much as you’ve done in your career.”With the pressure squarely on his shoulders, White responded by going big.Very, very big.“I dropped in and let all those fears go away,” he said.The Mammoth-based snowboarder scored a near-perfect final run of 97.75 points by completing a trick he’d never done before in competition to roar past teen rival Ayumu Hirano of Japan to retake his snow throne.White, 31, won his third Olympic title after finishing fourth in Sochi four years ago when he lost his composure.Not this time.Not even competing against 11 finalists whose average age is 21.9years old.“Even with the pressure, he was able to do it,” said Hirano, also second at the Sochi Games.“His tricks were so cool.”The San Diego native earned the United States’ 100th gold medal in Winter Olympics history by completing the vaunted back-to-back 1440s — trickery he supposedly couldn’t do.“I knew I had it in me to do and I did it,” White said.Now he’s the first American man to win three gold medals in three Games.Many, though, had summarily dismissed him as a cutting-edge competitor with the likes of defending Olympic champion Iouri Podladtchikov, who had withdrawn four days earlier after hitting his head at the Winter X-Games late last month.Hirano, 19, entered the Pyeongchang Games as the presumptive favorite, particularly after White had suffered two serious injuries in the fall — he needed 62 stitches after hitting his face on a lip while practicing a 1440 rotation trick that is the most difficult in the sport.Hirano knew better: “I knew he had the same tricks as I had,” the boarder said.Bronze medalist Scotty James of Australia said he has had to ignore the hype surrounding White when competing against the snowboard/skateboard action-sports star.“It’s almost easy to discredit yourself coming against someone like him,” James said.On a dangerous day of poor visibility, none of the world’s best snowboarders backed away from the challenge.American Ben Ferguson was fourth with an impressive score of 90.75 — just not quite good enough for a medal.White seized the lead after the first of three runs with a score of 94.25 that almost guaranteed a medal finish.